The healthcare industry is moving rapidly to digitize patient and inventory information in the form of electronic medical records. This move is motivated by cost savings, privacy needs, enhanced accountability, and, to a large extent, by existing and anticipated state and federal government regulations. U.S. government agencies are encouraging electronic medical record (EMR) adoption by the year 2015 by providing economic incentives for early adapters and penalties for late adapters. Although, EMR systems are more advanced for human health, the concept is beginning to be implemented for animal health applications for cost, inventory control and traceability advantages.
The assignee of the present invention has developed products that can provide relevant data to EMR systems and desires to extend this technology for utilization in refrigerated environments. The current products, for example, can obtain and store all information concerning medicinal containers and vials (e.g., remaining liquid/solid doses, manufacturer, lot number, expiration date, temperature, and additional related information) and provide the full search capability needed to monitor health and usage trends.
For example, this technology can be applied to the myriad of multi-dose vials used for allergy injections and other interventions in hospitals, physician offices (particularly allergists), public health centers, and veterinary service centers including animal feeding operations. Advantageously, these products would provide significant annual cost savings for human and animal health applications, respectively. The savings stem from reduced medication waste and lower inventory management costs.
In both human and animal pharmaceutical markets, liquid medications are provided in multi-dose vials. Currently, the management of vial inventories, including refrigerated inventories, is manual and hence problematic. Vials are often lost at the back or on the bottom shelves within the refrigerated environment. As a result, some vials reach their expiration date and must be discarded resulting in a loss of expensive medication.
Although a few technologies are available that make EMR adaptation feasible for collecting and managing solid medication inventories, when it comes to liquids, especially in enclosed multi-dose vials such as injectable medications stored inside a refrigerator, adequate technology to remotely and non-invasively measure and manage liquid inventories does not exist.
Accordingly, a system for facilitating communication of information between an information source positioned inside a refrigerated environment and a position outside the refrigerated environment is needed. Preferably, the system would further be able to sense an amount of content in at least one container positioned inside the refrigerated environment and transmit information concerning same to the position outside the refrigerated environment. In addition, the information could include any relevant information including EMR related information and could be transmitted from the outside to the inside, vice versa, or in both directions depending on need. All of these features are provided by the following invention.